Invoking the Endearment
by Zaedah
Summary: That initial meeting baked the cupcake of lies. And then he added the poison icing of Sweetheart.


_Just a little nugget to keep you toasty until the new batch of fresh eppies is delivered. For Piratesmiley, who continues to rock my Fringy world. _

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**Invoking the Endearment**

The first time had been about the bluff. She of the non-existent file and he of the perpetual con. That initial meeting baked the cupcake of lies; fluffy and nearly harmless. And then he added the poison icing of Sweetheart. In that moment, she despised the stranger.

Which had been his intention.

Insult the agent and make the polished getaway. But she had one card left and with it yelled Uno. Playing to a criminal's paranoia was almost too easy but flesh made jello waited at home and she hadn't flown those abundant miles to be brushed off like inconvenient lint. Cooperation by coercion suited her fine.

**…….****…….****…….****…….****…….**

The second time had been about the game. Hers was the cold exterior lining up against his heated snark. Competitive people make the worst team players. The temptation to one-up lead to ruin and it was just the morning for such messes. The argument, laced with enough undercurrents to drown a fish, was capped by the punctuation mark of a hated endearment.

He wanted to push.

Testing boundaries crowds the prison system, which he knows personally. But having gone hand-to-hand against the walking dead wasn't sufficient excitement. No, he had to shoulder his way past an armed woman's patience with the carelessness of blind cattle. Sweetheart ended the conversation and the wink he tossed in nearly concluded his life.

**…….****…….****…….****…….****…….**

The third time had been about the awe. She the casual believer and he the closet seeker took in the grape-flavored sunset with mouths open to appropriate width. It wasn't the stark purple so much as the scope. Knowing it was artificially created did little to dim the wonderment. So enraptured by unearthly tones above, she almost forgot to be irritated when he breathed Sweetheart into her hair.

Or when his arm snaked around her waist.

For a man so genetically predisposed to solitude, he had recently become rather fond of the covert touch. Innocently, of course, because her guns had multiplied. That she sank into the half-embraced wasn't her idea but her body ran on an entirely different agenda.

**…….****…….****…….****…….****…….**

The fourth time had been about the comfort. She was the calming voice to his surging fury. Truth set no one free, especially those not looking for it. He knew, had been forced to know and it broke whatever slim tether was holding him here. So she tied a sturdy string around him with a knot marked Sweetheart.

It surprised him.

Shock does many things, few of them good, but it certainly gave her the uninterrupted floor. Though she spoke every zen-worthy expression that came to mind, he resisted the hearing of platitudes that could not heal the wound. Not now. Not yet. So she tried something else.

**…….****…….****…….****…….****…….**

The fifth time had been about ten minutes later. She was above, him below and the only speaking consisted of panted words obvious enough to keep blushing visitors away. Above and beyond the call as it was, this was something she could give him. Because he needed it. Because he stayed.

Because he called her Sweetheart.

And he whispered it so reverently, no longer a tool of derision but a title of worship. Said a few other things too, which were cataloged for lonely nights and stakeouts. The exquisite exploration had the potential to ruin their working relationship but if they could get past the awkward dawn, there'd be no harm in future spelunking.

**…….****…….****…….****…….****…….**

The sixth time had been about the blood. Hers was borrowed and his was lent. It was, in fact, everywhere it could have been and nowhere it should have been. It certainly wasn't in him, the bullets having arranged a liquid exodus. Pressed gray slacks soaked up ample red in the sticky puddle where she knelt. He couldn't breath around the blood filling his lungs; metal intruders had carved a stinging path.

Sweetheart came on a gasp.

And as he lay choking before her, she could hear him plainly in her mind; '_I told you I'd rather stay in Baghdad, Sweetheart._' Only when his head tilted away from her did she find the entry wound at his temple. Under her pressing hands, the organ from which her nickname was derived slowed. Stopped.

**…….****…….****…….****…….****…….**

The seventh time had been about the grave. Her frozen fingers traced his block-letter name while the mist of a downpour day stung her eyes. It had been overly sunny, blindingly so, the day she'd first found him and she pondered the symbolism. But not for long. Such things lead to sulks and that wouldn't help the one in the coffin.

Especially since they'd never met.

Her grown-up version of this poor child waited in the car, still too sore to navigate the cemetery's mandatory uneven grass. But he understood why she wanted to come here, though he'd prefer not to think on death so soon after breathing it. She told him that she liked him better than anything another dimension could produce. And he called her Sweetheart.


End file.
